Cosmic Love
by The All Real Numbers Symbol
Summary: Alone after Tomoe's death, Kenshin contemplates suicide. But as he ponders his choices, a new option is shown to him. Himura Tomoe's final prayer reached to the one called Penitent Gretchen...


**Cosmic Love**

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**Summary**: After Tomoe's death, Kenshin finds the strength to go on when Tomoe's last prayer is answered by the Bringer of Hope…

**Genre**: Drama/Hurt/Comfort

**Rating**: T

**Disclaimer**: Nope. I own nothing.

**[A/N:]** So Madoka being the bringer of home to many different crossover characters is apparently a theme for me now. Once is a crossover, twice is unusual, three times is a theme, or something like that. In this story Madoka only goes by Gretchen since I'm still using the name Penitent Gretchen for Ultimate Madoka, so keep in mind when you see 'Gretchen', that's Madoka, and her speaking is a little different because I wanted to try and keep it a little formal. Hopefully it's not too confusing.

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It would be so easy, he thought, turning the short sword over in his hands. So easy. Seppuku was, after all, the only route left a fallen warrior. And none had fallen lower than he.

He turned the short sword over in his hands again. It had been Tomoe's. It would perhaps be his passageway back to her, he mused, and slowly began to pull it from it's sheath.

The sound of a twig cracking made Himura Kenshin stop and look around. The temple was remote, surrounded by forest on three sides. The afternoon sun shone down, leaving few hiding places left.

Now Kenshin tightened his hold on the sword for a different reason as he looked for the source of the noise. Another twig cracked, and then he saw a young woman come through the trees.

At first glance he thought that she too must be mourning, for her kimono was white. But closer inspection showed that the kimono was embroidered with pink flower petals and had a stripe of soft pink around the bottom of it, with a more slender band of gold set atop the band of pink. The wide obi was also pink accented with gold. Her paper parasol was also pink, with a stripe of white and gold around the edge. Her _tabi_ were pink, her _geta_ plain wood.

Her parasol shrouded her face, but she must have seen him, for she stopped. "It's a lovely afternoon," She said.

"So it is." He replied. "But in these troubled times it can hardly be safe for a young woman to walk by herself in the woods."

"The woods are perfectly safe for me." She replied, and there was a note of cheer in her voice. "But you may be right. You seem like a good man who would protect me. Will you escort me on?"

"My protection is worth nothing." Kenshin said, tightening his grip on the sword.

She looked up at him, and he noticed with some shock that her eyes were gold. Her hair was pink, tied up on either side with white ribbons, and trailing in the back to indicate it was twisted up at the base of her neck. Most spectacularly, the inside of her parasol showed a starscape, and the stars were moving and turning in their paths.

"Please, won't you walk with me?" She entreated.

He got to his feet, stunned by what he had just seen. "Who are you?"

"I am called Gretchen."

"Gletchen…"

"Gretchen." She corrected gently.

"A foreign name." He said as he descended the steps of the temple and joined her.

"I'm a bit foreign, Himura Kenshin." She admitted as they set off.

"I never told you my name." He replied.

The look on her face indicated that she had not meant to let that information slip.

"Did the Shogun spies send you, too?" Kenshin demanded, leaping back and drawing the short sword.

"No." She said, using the edge of her parasol to lower his sword. "You know the one who sent me."

"I know no one who could have sent you!"

"You're wrong. Surely you haven't forgotten her so soon, you who were ready to commit Seppuku to be reunited with her." Gretchen said gently. At the look of unabashed shock on his face, she gave a brief nod. "Yes. I know what you had considered to do. I have seen your future so many times and so many different ways since Himura Tomoe's prayer reached me."

"You're a kami."

She smiled. "I prefer to think of myself as a bringer of hope."

"My protection and my sword are good for nothing now. If I can't save the ones I love, how can I save an ideal? An emperor?"

Instead of answering, Gretchen held out her hand. "I can't tell you what to do. But I can show you what I see. I have looked at your future, and it changes. The future does that. But one theme keeps coming back up. Shall I show it to you?"

Kenshin thought it over for a moment, then hesitantly held out his hand. Gretchen took it and the world around them shifted and spun. All around them were scenes of the past and present. The scenes shifted away and Kenshin had the impression of them rushing forward, though neither of them had moved.

They had stopped on a path. Behind them the sun set, casting light forward.

"You think that your failure is absolute." Gretchen said turning so that the sun cast her shadow forward, and Kenshin saw that the shadow was not of a girl in a kimono but a girl on a flowing dress with wings on her back. He looked at Gretchen and saw that she had already begun to change; her geta and tabi were gone, and her hair that had been pinned back had fallen down, pooling at her heels.

"You believe that because you could not save the woman you loved that your sword and your skills are of no use anymore. That isn't true. Many more may still be saved if you find the courage to move forward. And yourself, also…" She trailed off and behind them came a voice.

"Daddy, daddy wait for me." A child's voice rang out, and Kenshin turned and saw a little boy come running up the path. There were two figures in front of them that he hadn't noticed until that moment. The little boy, red-headed and with blue eyes, darted past them, and Kenshin's eyes widened as he saw an older version of himself reach down and pick the child up. The woman's face was still shrouded in the light, though she had turned back at the child's cry.

"What is this?"

"I have looked at your future many times. In the ones where you do not kill yourself and are not slain in battle, this is the future I see for you."

She was standing behind him now, and he turned and saw her in the strangest garb he had ever seen a woman wear; a short white dress, accented with red stones, and with a skirt that flowed out behind her, showing the same starry sky from her parasol within the folds. Her legs were clad in tall white stockings. Wings sprouted from her ankles and her back. Butterflies swirled and fluttered around her.

"I came because I received a prayer. You believe you deserve death, and that you failed. But Himura Tomoe only threw herself in the way of your sword because she believed it was the best way to save you. A woman who loves enough to sacrifice herself for her husband does not wish for him to die also." Gretchen said with a sad smile. "I heard her prayer. Would you like to hear it?" She held out a white-gloved hand on which another butterfly rested.

It fluttered from her hand and landed on Kenshin's, and after a moment, he lifted it to his ear.

Gretchen watched patiently, and did not look away even when tears began to flow down Kenshin's face. She lifted off the ground and flew over to him. "I have answered her prayer. I have shown you this path. Only you can decide whether you will take it. My time here is done; all that I set out to do has been accomplished." She smiled at him. "Goodbye, Himura Kenshin. You were blessed to be that loved."

And then she released his hands and flew back into the sky, growing ever fainter as she ascended until she was gone.

**~xXx~**

Himura Kenshin awoke with a start and looked around. The afternoon sun was still shining down, the temple was still vacant, and Tomoe's short sword lay by his side.

It was all a dream? He wondered.

A butterfly came fluttering by, just then, and he recognized the pattern on it's wings as it flew.

_Not just a dream..._

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[A/N:] So I was re-reading Rurouni Kenshin again the other day and I wanted to write about it and I have watched the Trust and Betrayal OVA before…I'm not sure where this is set in. Maybe the manga, maybe OVA, maybe both. But I had the OVA in mind because I haven't read that far into the manga yet. Honestly I hope it fits into both.

I didn't really intend to set out and do a series about Madoka as a hope bringer, but this just kind of worked out. I don't know. I like the idea that Madoka brings hope to people.

This was interesting to write for a couple of reasons: if my research really isn't too far off, in Kenshin's time white was still a mourning color, so Madoka wearing white …to us today it has a different theme then it would have to Kenshin, and I did consider inverting the color's on Madoka's kimono for that reason and making it pink accented with white instead of white accented with pink. But I wanted to keep the elements of Madoka's Ultimate form there too, so I let it go. I also thought Kenshin would have issues with the name Gretchen because of the 'R' and 'L' comparison in Japanese, so that got thrown in too.

Anyway, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the story. Please leave a review. Feedback is always great!


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